ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that all healing practices, including complementary and alternative medicine (CAM), are increasingly influenced by forms of regulation that progressively lead to their standardisation. The type of regulation varies over time and has different consequences. The relationship between regulation and notions of science is critical to the process of standardisation of practices, but it is not a straightforward one. The state, consumers or patients, the medical profession and its competitors have an interest in regulation. There are great tensions between these stakeholders, and how these tensions are resolved impacts upon the clinical freedom of practitioners and the choices available to those seeking therapeutic assistance. In the following, a brief outline of the history of the regulation of medicine is provided, and the trends in this regulation and its effects on both established medicine and CAM are explored. Regulatory trends are illustrated with reference to salient events in New Zealand.
